Partyforumseasia: Chutzpah (/ˈhʊtspə/ or /ˈxʊtspə/) is the quality of audacity, for good or for bad. The Yiddish word derives from the Hebrew word ḥutspâ (חֻצְפָּה), meaning “insolence”, “cheek” or “audacity”. (Wikipedia)
Audacity certainly belongs to the personal qualities which make a political leader, but too much insolence and cheek easily become a liability which takes away the necessary credibility and trust of the voters. Prime Minister Najib Razak shows a remarkable cold-bloodedness in the current crisis around the more than controversial sovereign wealth fund 1MDB and its deficit of 11 billion $ and a dubious “campaign donation” of 700 million $ from an undisclosed Middle Eastern source.
Having lost the trust of huge parts of the Malaysian voters and more and more of the three million members of his UMNO party, he has the cheek to introduce a “National Consultative Committee on Political Funding (JKNMPP) to regulate the rampant money politics in Malaysia within a year (sic)!
By now every Malaysian knows that the UMNO rule is based on a huge financial transfer system which takes funds from all sorts of government related business ventures at the detriment of the economy. Appointing two Ministers in the PM’s department as chairmen of the JKNMPP looks like the epitome of chutzpah in the worst form of its above definition.
For many, not only serial-nemesis Mahathir, the days of Najib look like ending soon. So the triumph of eliminating opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim and emaciating the opposition coalition Pakatan Rakyat may turn out to be balanced by the self-destruction of UMNO by its own top leadership.